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CCWP is a grassroots social justice organization, with members inside and outside prison, that challenges the institutional violence imposed on women, transgender people, and communities of color by the prison industrial complex (PIC). We see the struggle for racial and gender justice as central to dismantling the PIC and we prioritize the leadership of the people, families, and communities most impacted in building this movement.

We are writing to ask you to join with California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) in our statewide campaign to DROP LWOP and secure sentence commutations for all those serving Life Without the Possibility of Parole (LWOP). LWOP is an inhumane sentence which denies people the possibility to rehabilitate and change.

We are asking Governor Brown to use his executive powers to commute the almost 5,000 people serving LWOP sentences — including nearly 200 women and transgender people in CA women’s prisons — to parole-eligible sentences. Because CCWP has advocated for the civil and human rights of people in CA women’s prisons for 22 years, we focus on the impact of life without parole sentencing on the 200 people serving LWOP in women’s prisons.

Will you join us? We are looking for organizations and individuals to sign on to the letter below as a first step in expressing support for this campaign. Please feel free to contact info@womenprisoners.org or (415) 255-7036 x 4 with any comments, questions, or concerns.

Thank you,

California Coalition for Women Prisoners

Dear Governor Brown,

As grassroots, advocacy, and social justice organizations, we are writing to urge you to commute the sentences of all people serving Life Without Parole (LWOP) in California’s prisons to parole-eligible sentences.

Life Without Parole sentencing is increasingly being challenged and limited across the United States. We believe that life without parole is inhumane. It denies that people have the capacity to change, grow and be rehabilitated, and thus is known as “the other death penalty” by those serving it and by their families.

As you know, many states, including California, are legislating against sentencing youth to Life Without Parole.[i] Now it is time to take action to mitigate the impact for all people sentenced to die in prison due to this endless punishment. While commuting a sentence does not guarantee release from prison, it does guarantee that each person will have the right to see the parole board in their lifetime, rather than being sentenced to a “living death.”

People of color are disproportionately sentenced to LWOP, revealing prosecutorial bias and racial discrimination.[ii] Of the nearly 200 people serving LWOP in CA women’s prisons, the overwhelming majority are survivors of abuse, including intimate partner battering, childhood abuse, sexual violence and sex trafficking. [iii] Additionally, the majority are first-time “offenders,” and had no record prior to being sentenced to Life Without Parole.

All 5,000 people serving LWOP in CA prisons are subjected to institutional discrimination, such as:

They are barred from rehabilitation programs, including the majority of state-run self-help programs because of their sentences.

Though they are required to pay restitution, they are only eligible for jobs that pay the lowest hourly wage, currently only eight cents per hour. Because they are barred from access to higher wage opportunities, they often cannot pay restitution, and this economic burden falls on their families.

They are ineligible for Elder Parole and Compassionate Release when aging and terminally ill.

We urge you to take a bold stance against Life Without Parole sentencing and let California serve as a model for the rest of our nation. Please continue to take leadership on this issue and commute all those sentenced to LWOP to parole-eligible sentences, initiate a process to eliminate life without parole from the California penal code, and provide people sentenced to LWOP with opportunities for rehabilitation and redemption.